Fees for the 2017-18 soccer year (August 2017 to July 2018) for Academy Teams were set after gathering input from a number of sources in order to properly make adjustments to the NMSA Academy Program after its inaugural year in 2016-17. As a result of that input and considering fees from the past year, the following fees have been set for 2017-18:

Fees Included for all Academy Players

Registration Fee (Fall) - $165 (Birth Years 2004 to 2007 Only)*

Registration Fee (Summer) - $310

Pool Training - $120**

US Club Pass - $20

Training Kit - $60

Administrative Fee - $20

*Players with Birth Years 2003 who do not participate with their high school program will be able to register for fall soccer outside of their Academy fees should they choose to do so and will be placed on another team for the fall season only.

**Pool Training will consist of options across adjacent birth years (i.e. 2004/2005) or corresponding genders (2003 Boys and Girls) to replace Open Academy Training that was done this past year. A final schedule will have to be built once indoor training schedules are finalized by teams, but will provide additional opportunities for all players to get additional training in outside of their specific team days/times.

More specific details on these will be available prior to player identifications and team formations, but these do provide a general outline of the roles of paid coaches, the number of days of indoor training the team will do as a team and the travel expectations of tournaments. These will vary by team, but by accepting placement on an Academy Team, families are committing to the fees and time/travel expectations outlined.

Note on Fees (excerpt from email sent out in May):

There have been numerous discussions in regards to these three items this past year with a wide variety of opinions both within teams and across the Academy program as a whole. While we acknowledge that there is no singular solution that can be offered to meet all of these thoughts and opinions, we do believe by gathering some information to help us structure things for the Academy program as a whole as well as provide some flexibility between different teams is valuable. Ultimately the goal is to take the input we receive and formulate an outline of commitment and expense for each of the top teams within each birth year from 2002 to 2007 that would make up the 2017-18 Academy Program. While we know that rosters will change and there will be new players who join the Academy program and others who will leave, we also know that the core of each of these teams will likely come from players who currently make up those top teams this year and want to include feedback from those families as we put things together for next year. Again, this is not an attempt to make everyone happy, as that is simply not possible, but it is our hope by gathering information on these three items, we can better put together an outline that makes the most sense for those families who are likely to be involved with those teams and the program as a whole.

A - Paid Coaching - A level 1 option at $8000/team, level 2 at $6000/team and level 3 at $4000/team. Each of these are an average amount we believe is needed to align properly qualified coaches with teams as needed. Level 1 would have a range of $6000-8000 and would be the equivalent of putting a head coach in place to be involved in all team activities. Level 2 would have a range of $4000-6000 and would be the equivalent of putting a head coach in place to be involved in the majority of team activities or all activities for teams who do not have a fall season and/or elect to do less over the winter months. Level 3 would have a range of $2000-4000 and would be the equivalent of putting an assistant coach in place to work along with a volunteer head coach. Volunteer assistant coaches would be placed with Level 1 and Level 2 coaches as well.

B - Indoor Training - although we will be restructuring the Open Academy training that was done on Sundays this year to better meet the needs of individuals and teams, we do want to provide options of 1, 2 and 3 days a week for individual teams. This is fairly easy to budget as space is very close to $2000 per night for 24 weeks, so Level 1 is 3 days a week for $6000/team, Level 2 is 2 days a week for $4000/team and Level 3 is 1 day a week for $2000/team.

C - It has been widely expressed this year that teams would like to have some sort of base tournament fee built into fees so teams do not have to ask for these funds outside of the Academy fees. Although this has some variance to it depending on what tournaments are attended, we do feel we can offer three options which will cover a good portion of tournament costs (outside of travel). Level 1 - $6000/team including one or more out of state tournaments (or USA Cup), Level 2 - $4500/team including one out of state tournament and Level 3 - $3000/team including at least one regional tournament (Rochestor, Duluth, Wisconsin Dells, Etc.). We do feel it is important that all teams commit to at least one "destination" tournament at some point during the year. Again, there is plenty of variety in the choices teams will ultimately make, but this does include some of those fees and provide a commitment in regards to travel.